[Classic] CQ – Aching Beauty [9/4/2002]

Looks like the last constructed tournament report I did in 2002. Looking at some of the posts I made in 2002, I sure wonder why I thought people cared what I did that didn’t have to do with V:TES. Fortunately, now, I have a blog, where the whole point is to get off topic and post about things that interest me far more than anyone else.

I don’t get Rebekka in my initial crypt draw nor an Effective Management. Jim questions my comment that I’m going to die. No way to block, no way to bounce his deck. No more way to deal with Jeff if Jim dies. I thought it made sense. Anyway, Brian can’t stop anything and can’t get into enough combats, but Greg lays off of him for a bit to whomp on Jeff. Necessary as Jim is getting pounded, then gets ousted. I somehow find a Rebekka after much Blood Doll based bloat to stall Jim, then Jeff. I pitch all my combat but hold on to my bleed, so when Greg got down to 6, I went over the top. Brian couldn’t do anything, so he made no effort to defend his 1 pool. All that was left was whether Jeff would run out of cards or kill me. He didn’t quite run out of cards.

Gomi was on the defensive for most of the game. I bloated wonderfully. Brian got a better draw and bloated well with some backwards rushes that worked. Brad bled for 1 a lot. I tried going forward. Partial success, but a lot of defense in Randy’s deck kept me from finishing him off for far too long. Eventually, Brad ousted Gomi. A big bleed bounced helped me finish off Randy. Brian was some more work. By the time it was down to Brad and me, I was pretty much out of cards and Brad had lots of minions/permanents. Brad Haunting my Club Zombie hurt a lot in the endgame as that was one of my few permanents. I tried withdrawing. Didn’t work. We were low on time, but Brad ousted me with about 10 minutes left. Totally screwed me not getting the table win.

Final:
Seating position was everything, well, for me. The final just had awful interaction with Jeff and Jim both having decks that did nothing but go forward, Jim being unable to defend at all against Brad’s bleeds, Chris having no way to put pressure on Brad. I didn’t do jack to Chris knowing that my only chance was to bloat long enough to play for second. I should be more specific as to why I didn’t do jack to Chris as I knew I couldn’t block Jeff’s bleeds, so it wasn’t like I needed to stay up. If I actually hurt Chris at all, we’d fight, and any expenditure of resources – losing blood, going to torpor, etc. – on my part dealing with that would have likely hurt my bloating and kill me. Of course, Jim pounded Jeff, failing to oust because Jeff put Khobar Towers out and started nuking his minions (which I was all in favor of). Brad would hit Jim a bit. Chris tooled up. Brad ousted Jim and complained about how I wasn’t doing anything so left Jeff alive for a while to oust me. But, Jeff had too few minions left, so I wasn’t threatened. Eventually, Brad gave up and killed Jeff. Chris punked some of Brad’s minions, but otherwise, put no pressure. So, even if I could oust Chris, I figured I had little chance of winning. So, once Chris was basically out of cards, I had a completely different strategy. It was a two-fold plan to play for “second”. By going after Chris, maybe I could oust him as I still had 30 cards or so left to try and compensate for all of his permanents. But, even if I failed, I was hoping to beat Chris down to where Brad would sweep and I’d tie for second. I was also trying for half a VP for a while, but we were playing with no time limit or something, always a bad idea as it means playing differently than you would in other rounds.

People wondered why I was playing the way I was. Given the deck I was playing, the decks at the table, and the seating position, I was completely screwed. If I had won the previous round, I would have been high seed, which would have made all of the difference. If Jeff inserted to my left instead of my right (Jim was always going to be behind him and Brad behind Jim), would have completely changed my game as I could have ignored Chris, who would have died to Jeff or Jim, and work on Brad. Might not have gotten Brad as he was still a bleed deck with bounce behind a defenseless deck, but if I got him, I was set up well.

I pulled an Enchant Kindred probably for a Freak Drive. Not a good idea as the lack of bleeding power hurt every round. One problem I had in the final was that people thought I had more bleed, like multiple FoWs. So, somehow, I was supposedly a threat to ousting Chris when he got below about 10 pool. No, this deck just sucks, but no one payed any attention. Got to stop playing bad decks. They rely too much on other people recognizing that they are bad.

Just didn’t nail the metagame with these. More wakes than I needed. Didn’t need DT at all. I thought I left 6 TMs, but apparently not.

x1 Tasha Morgan

Just not enough of anything – intercept, bounce, bleed, ways to get bleeds through, combat. Used to have Razor Bats, but besides sucking, I don’t have room for more intercept. Could have done without the Delaying Tactics as there were no vote decks, but votes would have been hard to deal with. About the only thing the deck did well was bloat. I consistently outlasted or extended bleed predators. Kind of surprising that there’s only 5 BDs given how often they showed up.

I don’t think the problem was toolboxing, but that Gargoyle toolbox doesn’t get to use as many good cards as another toolbox deck might and/or has too many issues with the clans/vampires having such poor discipline crossover.